AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The doctor nodded and sighed. He could see how painful this was for me, and he was doing his best to deliver the blow gently. “Yes, you are pregnant. We ran the test a few times to make sure. Your own diagnosis was right on the money.”
The past several weeks I had not been feeling that well. I was waking up nauseas in the mornings, and hormonally I just felt a bit off. I thought it was caused by the stress of juggling two lives. Things had continued to heat up between Gary and me, and we were still doing our best to keep our relationship top secret from everyone at work, and so far we’d been doing a bang up job with it. Ever since that morning in the shower, we’d been making love almost every single evening. We’d even done the new thing a few more times… wow… I never thought that would be so amazing, but it was.
But this… there was no way to hide this. It was going to ruin all we’d worked for. But at the same time it was such a blessing that I couldn’t feel bad about it. A baby… I was going to have a baby. I was actually going to be a mother. Gary and I had never used protection. I guess we both felt that if something like this happened, then it would only solidify our love. It would elevate us to new heights and force us to move forward in another direction.
But those were thoughts. Just thoughts and plans for something that might happen, but was very low risk. That’s all it was. But now here we were. This was something we were actually facing.
Or at least I was. Gary knew nothing about this. I hadn’t told him about how bad I’d been feeling. I didn’t tell him about the positive reading on the home pregnancy test I took. And I didn’t tell him anything about this doctor’s appointment. No way. There was no need to. Nothing was set in stone until now. It all might have been a mistake, something to not even worry about. I wasn’t going to distract him with things like that. He had a dangerous enough job as it was.
But now… everyone would know I was pregnant. I would start to show in a few months. I would have to take a leave of absence at the very least. I didn’t have enough time with the company to really do that, so I would have to quit. I would have to find another job. And of course everyone would eventually find out that I was carrying Gary’s baby, even if I didn’t work there any longer. Unless, he hid me away in some kind of closet whenever other people were around. It was ridiculous. This was going to come out. The gig was up. We were done for.
“Wow,” I said. “I can’t believe this.”
“So, this was an unplanned pregnancy?” The doctor asked. He was concerned with the way I was handling things. I could see he knew I was very emotionally distraught. I was. I knew that I had a huge mountain in front of me to climb and I was going to have a hard time trying to get my way out of this. That was actually the point. There was no way out of this. I was sunk. I would be lucky if I could somehow make myself tell Gary the truth.
“It is, but I’ll be ok,” I said.
When I left the doctor’s office, I felt broken. I had the rest of the day off and I went home to my apartment. It was quiet and relaxing. I had originally only took the time off to see the doctor, but I thought that might be suspicious, so I decided to take the whole day off as a sick day, instead of scheduling it ahead of time. When Gary texted me earlier to see if I was alright, I told him that I thought I had some food poisoning. I would be fine.
I loved the way he looked after me. I never wanted to give that up. But this was going to get Gary fired. It would ruin his career. He would end up like me. I was only working because I falsified my resume. I had no idea how long it might be before someone discovered this. When it happened, I would be moving again. I had played with delusions of grandeur that I might be able to keep this ruse going for years to come, or if someone did find out down the road it would seem almost inconsequential. I’d be in their good graces and they would want me to stay on anyway. That was the dream.
But as of right now, I was brok
en. I felt ashamed, and I felt that I was about to lose everything again. I couldn’t do this to Gary. I couldn’t ask him to give up his whole life for me. It was a fun, even romantic, idea to think about before when there were no real consequences happening, but now that it was about to get real, this was no laughing matter. He would lose his job and I would lose mine. We’d both be miserable doing something else to get by, something we hated. I doubted that Gary would be so inclined to falsify his resume to get hired on somewhere else. What kind of security was that for a couple with a baby? We needed stability for our child.
Did Gary even want kids right now? We’d never really spoken much about it. I wasn’t sure that it was even in the cards for him at this point in his life. He was probably just happy doing what he wanted to do with his time, not being tied down to a baby.
Would he marry me? If I told him about the baby, would he marry me? I would love to marry him. That was the most beautiful idea… it would work, right? Somehow, this would all come out alright with us. It would work itself out.
Who was I kidding? No, it wouldn’t.
The idea of what I had to do began to creep into my head. I hated the idea. I hated it. And most of all, I hated myself for wanting to give into it. I think I knew I was going to do this before the thought even came into my head. But there it was, fully formed and everything. I was going to leave.
I was going to leave and just disappear. I would not tell anyone where I was going or why. Gary would be devastated, I knew. That thought broke me into a million pieces. As I sat there on my couch knowing the pain I was about to cause the man I loved, I sobbed uncontrollably. Why was this happening now? There had to be another way.
Of course there was. But that way would involve destroying Gary and everything he wanted in his life. Firefighting was everything to him. It was the reason he woke up in the morning. I saw the flames of desire in his eyes. He was a fireman through and through. I would hate myself forever if I caused that to be taken from him.
And Gary would resent me for it. He would never say anything. No, he would never say a word and he’d be just as wonderful as could be, but I knew that he would resent me. And years might go by with this resentment building up inside of him. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let that happen to him. I wouldn’t let that happen to us.
Later that night, when Gary came over to my place after his shift ended, I had put the tears behind me and I was doing my best to act like I was feeling much better.
“I tell you, it was a rough morning, but by noon I was feeling much better,” I said.
“Glad to hear it,” Gary replied. “I wonder what you ate that made you sick?”
“I don’t know. It might have been one of those short lived stomach bugs or something. How was your day?”
“Oh, it was great,” Gary said. “Guess who got offered a promotion to Lieutenant?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You? They offered you that job? That’s amazing!” I yelled. I was so thrilled to hear that. He deserved it more than anyone else, that was for sure.
“Thanks,” Gary said. “It will be a bump in pay and prestige. I guess someone values what I do around that place.”
“Everyone does,” I said. I kissed him and snuggled up against his broad chest. I was going to miss this so much. But knowing that Gary was getting this great opportunity, this promotion, I was sure that I was making the right decision. If I told him about the baby, he would be thrilled and so excited, but he would lose the promotion. He would be fired from the company. Being Lieutenant was great, but it would not put him above company policy. There was only one man who could make exceptions, and Chief Walker was not about to do this. He was a stern man and very hard to please. If he found out about this he would feel lied and betrayed. There would be no second chances. Then he would owe everyone a second chance, at least that was how it would look.
I’d thought long and hard the whole day about the decision I was making, and while I was not sure it was the right one, it was the one that I felt in the long run would cause the least amount of pain for Gary. But looking back, I could see it was the path that would cause the least amount of pain in me. I couldn’t have stood living with myself knowing the great opportunity for happiness that I had cost Gary. I had to get away from him. He would be devastated. He would hurt, he would mourn, but he’d throw himself into his work, he would dust himself off, and he would move on. That was the type of strength that he possessed. He was not the kind of man to lay down under adversity.
I respected that so much.
